ARGENTINA: The Second most Powerful Man in the Nation

By Marcela Valente Reprint | | Print |

Marcela Valente

BUENOS AIRES, Jun 10 1996 (IPS) - A helicopter landed on a modest estate in the Argentine Pampas in a flurry of bodyguards and supporters, and Governor Eduardo Duhalde, the second most powerful man in Argentina, was in his weekend home.

The leader of Buenos Aires province, a short man with a prominent head, stepped out from under the rotating blades almost without stirring a hair, greeted by a flock of aides to brief him on the press visit to his San Vicente home.

Duhalde hopes to suceed Argentine President Carlos Menem in the 1999 elections, building on the success of his triumphs to date: he presently governs the most populated province in Argentina and is the first state governor ever to be reelected.

“This province is an emery board which wears down all its governors. I managed to be reelected once. If I become president I will be the first in history who got there after being governor of Buenos Aires state,” he told his guests, though he then refused to speak further about his candidacy.

President Menem was reelected by 8.5 million votes in May 1995, and 4.5 million of these were raised by Duhalde.

“We don’t have much time for Menem but Duhalde is different, he takes an interest in us, he talks to us and knows what our problems are. Also, he does a lot of work for the province,” said one neighbour in San Vicente.

Duhalde told IPS he liked to be in direct contact with his electorate. “I fly out in my helicopter and land the little towns, I visit the houses and drink mate (a local tea) with the people, and we talk about their problems. This is my way of doing politics and these are my priorities,” he said.

He said he would not change his style if he becomes president, although he is aware that governing a nation is not the same as governing a province. He added that he would pick up where Menem left off, and follow more or less the same line.

For Duhalde to become the Justicialist Party presidential candidate, he must be elected in internal elections by the majority of the party members – Menem is already out of the running as the Constitution only allows one reelection.

Menem said Duhalde must compete with Governor of Tucuman and singer Ramon “Palito” Ortega, and former governor of Santa Fe, and formula one driver, Carlos Reutemann, along with other possibles like his brother Senator Eduardo Menem and Economy Minister Domingo Cavallo, both champing at the bit.

Despite sharing their party roots, Menem and Duhalde have very different approaches to how things should be done. “I am proud to be seen as an old traditional Justicialist,” he said, whether the neoliberal business sector like it or not.

However, he said more State intervention was needed in job creation in order to achieve better wealth distribution, and technology should not be the only motor of progress.

“Those of us who are Peronists (Justicialists) and Christians, have no doubts between machines and men. Machines do not send their children to school, nor do they eat, nor do they get ill. Thats why, like (former US president) Roosevelt, I think the machines should be put away, and work given to the people,” he said.

Duhalde is a great follower of the “welfare state” economist Keynes, and when road resurfacing was needed in the province he helped create small work cooperatives which carried out the work at low cost, while offering local employment.

Unemployment in Argentina hit 18.6 percent in 1995, and has now settled at around 14 percent. The main industrial centres of the province – the outskirts of Buenos Aires and the city of Bahia Blanca – have joblessness of 22 and 20 percent respectively.

Duhalde compared the situation with what he saw in his tour of Western Europe in May. “In Spain unemployment is as high as it is here, but while there a jobless person has psychological problems, in Argentina they go hungry,” he said.

The governor was Menem’s vicepresident during his first term (1989-1995), building his popularity with a low personal profile, combined with a sophisticated propaganda machine showing him constantly inaugurating new public works.

He appears so commited to doing his duty that he is generally considered beyond the issues picked up by the national press, with a public image of “a man who works” while the others are talking.

He is also different from Menem in other ways, for while the President’s family has disintegrated during his leadership, Duhalde insists the most important things in his life are his wife, Hilda, and their six children.

His children study, work and live almost monastic lives. One of his daughters is deeply religious, commited to strict discipline while not within a religious order. Her modest austere style is far from typical amongst the younger offspring of the Argentine political class.

This said, Duhalde is still not free from his critics, nor suspicions about the darker side of his power. For most of the reporters visiting San Vicente, this private section of his life represents a total unknown.

One of the most recent Argentine bestsellers, “El otro” (the other) was an attempt to delve into the mysterious life of the governor and his family, but this barely managed to break the surface.

The writing of the book earned its author, Hernan Lopez Echague, two beatings from unknown heavies when he started digging for facts in sensitive areas.

Duhalde denied Lopez’s accusations of making illicit income from narcotrafficking during his time as governor, and as if to neutralise suspicions, he is one of the main leaders of the fight against drug peddling and addiction.

He is dean of the drug dependency chair at the University of El Salvador in Buenos Aires, the core subject in a masters degree course on drugs which he created.

Duhalde took Lopez to court on libel charges, but the judge threw the case out.

The governor reacted by making a television appearance, complete with weeping wife and children, to show the extent of the damage done by the author’s claims.

The most damaging information published by Lopez were statements made by Duhalde in interview, where the governor said it was impossible to live on his assigned monthly salary of 4,000 dollars, admitting that the controversial Fund for the Historical Recuperation of the City of Buenos Aires was loosely administered.

This fund, raised from 10 percent of income tax, is worth 600 million dollars per year, being paid to Buenos Aires State by the nation in order to help the population in the area around the city, 25 percent of whom come from the interior of the country.

“Some of my advisers say I must not be so sincere and should say I’ve got more than I really have, because no one believes I’ve only got my house in Buenos Aires and another on the beach,” he said.

At various times he has been accused of owning businesses as varied as supermarkets, media concerns and brothels, though no proof has been found.

Meanwhile, the extent of his true property is difficult to prove, and he would not be the first provincial governor to rely on frontmen. However, what is certainly not in doubt is that Duhalde is currently the most powerful man on the Argentine political scene, running hot on the heels of Menem.